Abstract
Organization & Environment (O&E) is now publishing its fourth issue since its editorial reorientation in 2013 (Aragon-Correa, 2013), which saw it emerge as a premier journal analyzing the connections between sustainable organizational management and all dimensions of the general environment. In addition, this issue is the last of the first year after the reorientation. Against this background, this editorial provides a good opportunity to discuss some preliminary conclusions about this year’s publications in our journal and, especially, our general ideas about future publication possibilities in this field.
First of all, it is important that we thank everyone who submitted their work to our journal this year. We have been lucky to publish excellent articles from emerging and leading scholars in our field, some of which have already received high levels of attention and been repeatedly cited. Some of the most read and/or cited works that we published this year include (listed by order of publication) the following:
Bansal, P., & Knox-Hayes, J. (2013, March). The time and space of materiality in organizations and the natural environment. Organization & Environment, 26, 61-82.
Shrivastava, P., & Kennelly, J. J. (2013, March). Sustainability and place-based enterprise. Organization & Environment, 26, 83-101.
Tregidga, H., Kearins, K., & Milne, M. (2013, March). The politics of knowing organizational sustainable development. Organization & Environment, 26, 102-129.
Benn, S., Edwards, M., & Angus-Leppan, T. (2013, June). Organizational learning and the sustainability community of practice: The role of boundary objects. Organization & Environment, 26, 184-202.
Zollo, M., Cennamo, C., & Neumann, K. (2013, September). Beyond what and why: Understanding organizational evolution towards sustainable enterprise models. Organization & Environment, 26, 241-259.
Jaffee, D., & Newman, S. (2013, September). A bottle half empty: Bottled water, commodification, and contestation. Organization & Environment, 26, 318-335.
Second, it is crucial that we thank all of the reviewers who have collaborated with O&E this year, and also all of our friends and colleagues who have helped out with the process of collaborating and spreading the word on the journal. A top journal needs top collaborators and reviewers, and we have been lucky to receive the advice and assistance of many of the best scholars in the field.
Third, we want to encourage you to consider O&E the outlet for your best works in the field of organizations and environment. We are open to multiple and innovative topics, theoretical approaches, and empirical methodologies. After 1 year, we already have a number of ideas that we would like to share with you about areas or approaches that have great potential.
We have a growing need for global approaches to the analysis of the connections between organizations and the environment. It is more and more difficult to focus on only one dimension of the environment, and even when O&E pays very special attention to the more natural dimensions, we recognize that it is difficult to analyze these without considering regulative, social, technological, or competitive dimensions, among others. In this context, our interest in the relationship between organizational management and sustainability means that we are open to publishing any work that links management to any dimension of the environment, and especially those that analyze different dimensions of the environment at the same time (e.g., technological and legal, social and technological, natural and social).
We would also like to receive more works addressing the urgent need to pay attention to the management of organizations in developing countries. The vast majority of our literature on the field of organizations and the natural environment thus far has analyzed samples of Western countries (particularly North America and West Europe). Interestingly, some of the richest areas of the planet in terms of biodiversity (e.g., Africa) have received only marginal attention in existing literature. Perhaps because of the ease of accessing data, some contexts have received more intense attention, while others have been underanalyzed. We also need to know more about the connections between the environment and organizations in rural areas, about different forms of organizations, about organizations dealing with water in general and the oceans in particular, and about organizations in service industries.
Finally, we all have to recognize that the complexity of analyzed connections may require novel approaches. Multiple disciplines offer perspectives and inputs that provide better understandings of situations. We thus ask authors to pay very special attention to management challenges and opportunities when analyzing the connections between organizations and the natural environment and emphasize that multiple disciplines can provide inputs for analysis. Sociology and business management have been central to the history of O&E, but we also encourage submissions that draw inspiration for analysis from multiple disciplines such as psychology, geography, economics, political sciences, and biology.
At the same time, in the methodological arena, traditional surveys of CEOs and managers have to be extended with analysis of secondary data, experiments, and simulations, among others. Qualitative studies are also welcomed by O&E. However, while the editors of O&E are excited about offering opportunities to apply methodologies, they should be implemented according to the highest standards of rigor and credibility.
We hope that you enjoy reading O&E’s excellent publications and that you will not hesitate to contact any member of the editorial team to discuss your suggestions or questions.